


This Life Is Overwhelming

by Enclave



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Sickfic, Vomit, emetophobia warning, h/c
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-27
Updated: 2014-04-27
Packaged: 2018-01-21 00:26:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1531205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enclave/pseuds/Enclave
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam's always had this terrible habit of waking up in the middle of the night to be sick after particularly harrowing hunts. Normally Dean can handle his sniveling, overemotional little brother okay, but sometimes Dean gets overwhelmed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“D --” A quiet cough. “Dean?”

Dean’s eyes fluttered open to the sound of Sam’s shaking, panicky voice. The motel room was dark and oppressively quiet. For a moment, Dean let himself believe he had imagined it. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to take care of Sammy, but he’d been having insomnia almost nightly since John’s death, and the prospect of forfeiting even an hour of restful, nightmare-less sleep was not an appealing one.

Sam gave a couple more shaky coughs, half-stifled, and Dean heard him start to get out of bed. Dean woke himself up fully, lifting his head from the pillow. “Sit back down,” he ordered, voice gruff but quiet. “I’ll grab you the bin.”

“Alright,” Sam said, faking calm for a moment. “H- hurry,” he added after a moment, a whimpering, urgent edge creeping into his voice.

Dean hated these nights.

It had been worse since Dad’s death. When John had been alive, he’d never stooped so low as to stay in the motel room for Sam’s ritual midnight crises, instead slipping out of the motel at the first sign of trouble and finding a bar to drink in until everything was over. But with John at a bar nearby, Dean knew he’d at least have backup if things suddenly went south.

Now there was no plan B, only Sam and Dean in a motel room in the middle of nowhere, Dean flipping on a flashlight and standing it upright in a corner to lend a glow to the room without turning on the harsh ceiling lights, Dean grabbing the plastic trash bin (empty, thank god). Sam’s knees were drawn up on the bed partway to his chest, his lanky frame compressed into a half-fetal curl. One of his hands hovered, shaking, in the vicinity of his mouth. His adam’s apple bobbed with an effortful swallow as he reached out with his other hand to take the bin that Dean delivered into his arms.

Sam let out a couple quiet coughs that could only mean one thing. Dean crawled up on the bed beside his sick brother, laying a hand on the nape of his neck as he moaned and began to cough again, deeper this time, ducking his head convulsively over the waiting basin. The coughs turned into a retch, and then another from a deeper place, and then Sam jerked and brought up a wave of vomit that was mostly water into the bin. He gasped and whimpered pitifully.

“Hey,” Dean said as Sam caught his breath, rubbing circles into the back of his neck. “You’re okay. I’ve got you. Hunt’s over, we’re safe.”

“Dean, I - I don’t think -” Sam said urgently, before his breath caught and he threw up again, messily this time, over the bin and his lap.

“Shut up,” Dean said, “Don’t try to talk. Want me to get you some water?”

Dean was only capable of this kind of sympathy in the dark. He moved closer to Sam’s side as he began to shudder yet again, coughing up another mouthful of god knows what and gagging convulsively. After he was done, Sam nodded his assent. “Water it is,” Dean agreed nonchalantly, and he moved to stand, but one of Sam’s hands, hot and sweaty, clamped around his wrist. He sat back down again - “Okay, Sammy, we’ll give it another minute” - and rubbed his brother’s back as he leaned apprehensively over the basin, moaning involuntarily from pain, nausea, panic.

“Are you done?” Dean asked after a minute had passed.

“I think so,” Sam confirmed, his voice hoarse. As he lifted his head from the bin, Dean saw tear tracks and snot glistening on his face. He was a mess. Sam swiped a hand over each cheekbone and his upper lip as Dean brought the bin to the bathroom to empty it out.

This nighttime ritual of emesis had become common when Sam and Dean were young. Every few hunts, something about the killing would be too much for Sam, then twelve or thirteen years old, who had never become properly desensitized to death and gore. The horror of it would bring on nightmares; he would wake up disoriented and sick to his stomach. The first few times it happened, Sam didn’t tell Dean - at the first rolling wave of nausea, he had darted out the door of the motel and been sick in the bushes outside, over and over again until there was nothing left to bring up, bewildered and shaken by the bodily rebellion, and then crept back inside and gone back to sleep. He was loath to show his older brother weakness, or worse, worry him.

Dean had been furious when he found out what Sammy had been hiding.

Since then, Dean had been an integral part of the process, and instrumental in assuring that neither brother was ever forced to scrub vomit from a motel carpet.

He’s also learned a lot about Sam. Sam isn’t a stereotypical tough guy in day-to-day life - of the two brothers, he’s much more likely to initiate chick-flick moments, and he bottles up his feelings less than Dean does. But in the middle of the night, delirious from panic, Sam is needy, vulnerable, and a completely open book, even more so than he is during the day.

Dean returned from the bathroom and sat quietly beside his brother for a moment. Sam leaned into Dean readily. Dean snaked an arm around his side and Sam turned his face into Dean’s shoulder, burying it in Dean’s neck and closing his eyes. Dean could feel Sam’s hot breath puffing into his shirt. It was a reassuring sensation. Sam would be okay for another day.

“Dean… sorry…”

“Don’t.”

“No, I… I didn’t mean to get you up…” Sam said quietly.

“Stop, man. It’s fine.” Dean cut him off succinctly.

“Mm,” Sam mumbled noncommittally. A quiet moment passed. Sam melted slowly into Dean’s side; Dean could feel his breathing beginning to even out. Before Sam could fall asleep completely, Dean shifted a bit on the bed.

“So what was that about?”

Sam sighed, sounding beleaguered. “I don’t wanna talk about it,” he murmurred.

“Dude. Spill.”

Sam stayed quiet.

“Seriously, Sam, don’t make me beat it out of you,” Dean threatened.

“I don’t wanna talk about it!” Sam repeated forcefully, lifting himself from Dean’s shoulder with an effort and looking him in the eye seriously.

“Well, too bad. You have to.”

“Dean…”

“Don’t keep me in the dark, Sammy. You’ve been having these nightmares every few days for weeks.”

A long silence stretched on between the brothers, but Dean could tell that Sam had already yielded by the way he looked at everything but Dean, his gaze tracking through the darkness of the motel room. “It’s just… when we… when we banished the spirit a few weeks ago, in Kentucky… and the ghost in the office building in Virginia… it makes me… it makes me wonder about Dad,” Sam choked out.

“Sammy…”

“Don’t, Dean. I know,” he interrupted bitterly. “Hunter’s burial. There’s no way. But I just think… I can’t help but wonder if…”

Sam cut himself off abruptly, close to tears, anger in the set of  his features. Dean said nothing, feeling completely out of his element, instead leaning closer to Sam, who took Dean’s tacit invitation and buried his face back into Dean’s neck, his frame shaking with residual fear and grief, tears soaking hot wet patches into Dean’s t-shirt.

Dean swiped stray tears from under his eyes and looked up at the ceiling, praying for deliverance.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Sam threw himself out of bed and bolted for the bathroom before Dean was really even awake. By the time Dean was at the bathroom door, knocking mostly out of politeness (he knew Sam wouldn’t be able to respond) and letting himself in …  he still wasn’t really awake.

Dean surmised that Sam’s nightmare had been more due to the sheer goriness of their latest case, which had ended in the slaughter of wave upon wave of vampires at an abandoned barn outside of town. Heads had rolled, blood gushing in fountains from the paired arteries in the necks, swamping the room in the smell of death. Even for Dean, it had been a bit much; he had not slept easy, both remembering the gruesome scene and expecting Sam to wake panicked at any moment.

Truth be told, though, Dean hadn’t slept well in a full week, maybe more. Sure, he had drifted off for an hour here and there, but lately, he had been overwhelmed by guilt and regret every time he had a moment alone. Which was why he had pushed Sam into taking this case just a day after their last one, driving across the country for twelve hours straight, his eyes burning with exhaustion, so that they could take down the nest. Sam hadn’t complained; he was doing fine, and this was his first nightmare in a long time, so Dean wasn’t worried about him. But the overexertion was taking a toll on Dean, mentally as well as physically, and being roused from half-sleep made him want to destroy something - possibly himself. Preferably by injudicious alcohol consumption.

Instead, he pushed open the door to the grimy motel bathroom. Sam was on his knees, looking relatively composed, considering the circumstances, and spitting into the toilet bowl. Dean leaned against the doorway. “You okay?” he sighed.

“Yeah, Dean, I’m fine,” Sam sighed, standing and rinsing his mouth out at the sink. Dean watched him splash water on his face and towel off through a haze of sleep-deprivation.

There was a quiet whooshing noise behind him. Dean turned around so fast he stumbled slightly, lunging unsteadily for the knife tucked between the mattress and the bedframe at the foot of his bed and losing his balance completely. He braced himself to hit the floor, but something - someone - caught him before he could collapse completely. Dean tried to wrest himself free. Why wasn’t Sam doing anything to help him?

“What’s wrong, Dean?” Castiel asked, his voice gravelly and concerned. “Didn’t you call?”

Dean went completely limp. It was just Castiel, just Cas breaking into their motel room - well, not technically breaking in, but whatever - in the middle of the night. Cas actually picked Dean up - it’s not like Dean had any pride left at this point, anyway - and carried him to the bed, setting him down gently.

“No,” Dean muttered, “I didn’t fucking call.”

“You made a wish. That is equivalent to a prayer.”

“I did not,” Dean protested, exhaustion in his voice, holding himself upright on the edge of the bed through sheer willpower.

Castiel reached out two fingers towards his forehead and Dean jerked convulsively and slapped them away. “Don’t you fucking dare mess with my mind, Cas.”

“I can leave if you would like,” Cas said, bewildered.

“I…” Dean rubbed his face, finding himself unable to respond. His mind refused to string all his thoughts into sentences. Sam stood behind Cas, at loose ends. “Sam, could you give us a minute?” Dean sighed.

“Yeah, I’ll get some air,” Sam agreed, stepping outside of the motel room and closing the door quietly.

“Dean, are you alright?” Cas asked, after a short silence.

“Tired,” Dean groaned. “I’m tired.”

“But you cannot sleep,” Cas supplied.

“Yeah. I guess.”

“Why?”

“Right, I guess you don’t have too much experience with insomnia,” Dean mused, swaying a bit. Castiel shot out a hand and grabbed him before he could lose his equilibrium completely. Dean leaned into the touch for a split second before shrugging Cas off.

“I have a lot of death on my hands,” Dean continued. “As in, a lot, Cas. Everyone who comes near me… Dad… Jo…”

“That is not your fault,” Cas stated.

“It’s my responsibility.”

“You are your responsibility, too,” Cas said quietly.

“Look, I didn’t mean to call you out here… I’m sure you have more important things to do… it’s just… since Dad’s been gone… Sam’s been having a rough time of it, and I guess I don’t have any friends left alive to turn to,” Dean said ruefully.

“Dean, you are more important to the universe than you could possibly know, and it is important that you don’t wear yourself out doing this.”

“Oh, who fucking cares? I’m driving Sam into the ground already. Maybe I’m doing this because I’m ready to be done with this and -”

“Don’t say that,” Cas interrupted him fiercely. “Dean, I’m serious. We need you alive.”

There was a long silence.

“I’m going to sleep,” Dean said.

“I’ll be here.”

“No. Go back to heaven and do… whatever important shit you do in heaven.”

“I’ll make sure Sam is okay for the rest of the night so you can get some rest. You’re what’s important right now. Heaven can wait.”

“Cas…”

“I will use my powers on you if you don’t cooperate,” Cas said sternly.

Dean sighed deeply, opened his mouth to speak, closed it again, and crawled under the covers.

When he woke, the sun was up, and Cas was gone without a trace. But the next night, when Sam awoke from another nightmare about the pile of headless bodies, it was Cas who lead him to the bathroom and pulled his hair back as he threw up, and Cas who returned him to his bed and waited by his side as he fell back asleep. All Dean remembered the next morning was waking up to a sense of urgency and unease, and then a hand on his forehead and a gravelly voice. “I'll take care of him, Dean. Go back to sleep."

 


End file.
